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case with perfect candour and accuracy, and that he is most careful on every occasion to develop fully the arguments opposed to the view which he himself adopts. We will give one example. Sir John Burgoyne's letters to the 'Times' of the 30th June and 4th August 1868 embody, in the ablest form, and stated in the most concise and graceful manner, and with the utmost cogency, all the arguments which can be urged against his views; and those he has, for the information of his readers, reproduced entire in his second edition.* This stamps the character of the man. An historical work, to be really of value, should be so written that a reader opposed to the conclusions of the author should yet not have to turn to any other work for the facts or the arguments on which to rest his opinion. We know few histories which will stand this test better than Mr Kinglake's.

One marked feature of Mr Kinglake's mind is his vivid sense of humour. In his delineation of character there is often a keen delicate irony in his description of events, a swift pounce on the ludicrous, expressed in quaint pointed words -which gives a singular zest and charm to his pages. To the exquisite beauty of his style it is unnecessary to allude. There is one fact which proves it more than pages of disquisition. We believe there is not a single reader who has taken up these volumes who has ever laid them down until he has read every line from the first to the last. Yet the whole two volumes only contain a narrative extending from the 21st September to the 25th October 1854, and two-thirds of the fourth volume is taken up with the events of a single day. This leads us to consider what we look on as the greatest artistic defect of Mr Kinglake's work. To his unwearied industry, and almost painfully conscientious pursuit after accuracy and truth in the most minute par

ticulars, he has sacrificed breadth and generality of effect. To the ordinary reader he has, perhaps, thus made his work more interesting and amusing, but to a military reader he has made it much less effective. Had it been compressed to one-half the length, it would, as a military narrative, have been doubled in power; and as a military narrative a history of the invasion of the Crimea must always be judged.

In all the fine arts-painting, sculpture, poetry, history-generality of effect-that is, impression on the mind-can be produced only by breadth. The principles of all these arts are the same, though the instruments by which the impression is produced differs in each. What his colours are to the painter, that his chisel is to the sculptor, and his pen to the poet or the historian. The painter gives unity and effect to his picture by a judicious massing of light and shade; the historian produces the same result on his pages by concentrating the attention of his readers on the important points only, and passing over, as briefly as is consistent with accuracy, the unimportant. Now the great defect of Mr Kinglake's work, in an artistic point of view, is, that unity of effect is impaired by the multitude of cross lights; that, in the flood of personal anecdote and disquisition, the attention of the reader is distracted from the points of real to those of secondary importance. So beautiful and so perfect is the finish of every sentence, that one would feel pained at omitting any, yet the very multiplication of beauty mars the effect. Reading his book is like looking on a lovely pre-Raphaelite picture, where every flower, every blade of grass, every bird, is so exquisitely delineated in a bright flood of light, that one could not have the heart to say that any one should be left out; but we yet feel that the grandeur of the painting as a whole would be im

* Kinglake, vol. iv. p. 427-438.

mensely increased by throwing twothirds of it into shade.

In military narrative, breadth of effect will be best obtained by keeping the attention firmly fixed on the general result produced by the movement of the body of troops under consideration, and carefully avoiding every temptation to stray into fractional description, unless the action of a fraction produced an exceptional result. For instance, suppose an attack is made by a division, then the impact of this division on the enemy's line should be treated as a whole, unless some brigade, regiment, or individual, should have entered on a separate line of action, which led to a result different from what that of the whole body would otherwise have been. This would require, of course, to be separately described. But an adherence to this rule wonderfully simplifies the detail of an action. In this respect Sir William Napier's battle-pictures are admirable. His description of the advance of the Fusilier brigade at Albuera is a masterpiece. In graphic and condensed power there is nothing in Mr Kinglake's work to equal it. Any one who has studied Napier will see the principles, on which he worked.

He

described, in clear, forcible, and thrilling words, the picture which a deep study of the details had left upon his mind; but he carefully omitted all particulars not essential, and all those steps by which he himself arrived at the result. Mr Kinglake follows a different plan; he describes, in minute and finished periods, all those successive incidents and steps by which he gradually reaches the idea he wishes to convey. The one writer lays before the reader the result only; the other carries him along with him in the whole work of building up the edifice from the foundation. Napier rarely breaks in upon the unity of his narrative by notices of personal adventure; where heroic actions are performed, he relates them in that natural pause which

follows at the conclusion of a fight. Mr Kinglake intersperses, and, as we think, weakens his narrative by an innumerable host of anecdotes and even biographies of comparatively obscure individuals

not in themselves of real importance, and introduced as they actually occurred during the progress of the fight. He thus gratifies many vanities and interests many readers, but he painfully weakens the force of his narration.

There are two points Mr Kinglake would do well to attend to. One is, not to cloud his narrative by introducing discussions or observations upon events as they occur, but to wait for those natural opportunities which the conclusion of a battle, the end of a series of movements, or the close of a campaign, present. The other is, not to mix up his description of great operations with so many minute records of unimportant actions. The great deeds performed by individuals which sway the course of events are very few in any campaign. Mere acts of heroism come best in, as Napier generally introduces them, grouped together at the end of a fight, as anecdotes illustrative of the temper of the combatants.

We cannot conclude without a few words on Mr Kinglake's characters of Lord Raglan and Prince Mentschikoff. We are unable to accept his view that Lord Raglan was a great general. Courteous in manner, chivalrous in disposition, high of courage, pure in heart, of an excellent judgment, he was a man to be loved and to be admired

and he was both loved and admired. If ever it could be said of any man that he had not an enemy, we believe it might be said of him. But he was not a great general in the sense in which Napoleon and Wellington were. His mind was not impregnated with the great principles of his art. When a particular set of events took place, he did not at once, and almost instinctively, see the military move

ment required, and strive with an earnest force of will to carry it into action. His mind was essentially diplomatic. He is more to be compared with Schwartzenberg than with any other general. He was singularly suited to be the commander in a coalition. The wit of man could not devise a scheme SO sure to neutralise the good qualities of both the English and French armies as to tie them together for active service. The modes of action of each are diametrically opposed. Whichever bore sway, the other was placed at a disadvantage. Probably no other man would have preserved his relations with the French so well as Lord Raglan. His singular urHis singular urbanity, his unfailing temper, his delicate observation, his peculiar reticence, seemed to mark him for the task. That strong feature in his character, his almost horror "of the certain evils of discussion," will not surprise any one who has had the misfortune to mix much in the affairs of men. It may safely be said that no man is ever influenced by an argument in which he bears a part. We doubt if, even in the House of Commons, the best speech ever altered a vote directly. Indirectly it often does, but that is by its effect on public opinion out of doors, and the reaction of that on the feeling of the House. Now in councils of war there is no public opinion, and each commander will usually always adhere to that view to which he has once committed himself. Lord Raglan knew this well, and before engaging in any discussion, ever strove to ascertain if the views held by his allies were decided or open to change. If the former, then he silently accepted the situation; if the latter, he gently endeavoured to lead them over to his own opinion. He never irritated the French by the jar of a useless argument, but proceeded at once to seek for, not the best course in the abstract, but that which seemed to him the one most practicable under

existing circumstances. Lord Raglan had never held command in the field. Long on the Duke of Wellington's Staff in his great campaigns, and singularly trusted by that commander, he had never that experience which is derived from the responsibility of personally directing men in war. During the long peace, his duties as military secretary were not calculated to direct his attention to the military art. But he discharged his delicate and difficult task in the Crimea in a way to earn the deep gratitude of the nation which he served so truly and so well. The heroic sacrifice of self-the unflinching way in which he bore any loss of present reputation, rather than by one impatient word endanger the alliance imposed on him by his country-the load of care and of suffering he carried with him uncomplainingly to the grave-the silent sorrow with which he saw his noble force melt away beneath the winter's snow-the disastrous defeat on the 18th June, before which he bowed down his head and died, -these things have stamped his memory on the fond recollection alike of the army and the people. He was a man from the old heroic age, but he was not a general of the highest order. Mr Kinglake's own facts prove this.

We do not think Mr Kinglake has done justice to Prince Mentschikoff. He had considerable strategical abilities, though a singular tactical unreadiness in handling troops in the field. His choice of a battle-field on the Alma was good. His desire afterwards to take up a position on the Upper Belbec, flanking the advance of the Allies on the north side of Sebastopol, was sound in principle. His resolution in sinking the ships across the mouth of the harbour, against the earnest advice of Korniloff, and his devoting the whole power of the fleet to the land defence, was beyond all praise, and undoubtedly saved Sebastopol. His flank march up the Mackenzie Heights to recover his

communication with the interior, compromised by the advance of the Allies against the north side, was a wise and able strategical measure; albeit the utterly unexpected step taken by them of abandoning the attack on that point, together with the power of operating on the line connecting him with his base, rendered it unnecessary. His direction of Liprandi with his field-detachment against Balaklava, in order to lessen the pressure against Sebastopol by threatening their flank and rear, was vigorous and well timed. On the other hand, his want of quickness, in not at once altering the disposition of his troops at the Alma to meet the attack of the French on an unanticipated point, was painfully apparent. His hasty withdrawal of the whole field-force from the north side of Sebastopol, in the face of the advance of the Allies, was a step which might have proved fatal. His permitting their whole army to stream in file past his rear down the Mackenzie Heights, when he had nearly 30,000 men well in hand on the Belbec, was casting aside wilfully all the favours of fortune. His long delay in reoccupying, in a military manner, the vital position of the Mackenzie ridge, and in re-enforcing the garrison of the town when his communications with it by the north were reopened, is inexcusable. He gives us the idea of an able man well read in strategy, but utterly unused to handle troops in the field, and without practical experience in war. It is impossible to close these volumes without reflecting in how mysterious a manner the works of men are moulded by the hands of Providence. To all human appear ance the Allies, in not attacking the north side immediately after the battle of the Alma, and in not assaulting the south either when

they first appeared before it, or when the Redan had been crushed by their fire, threw away the fairest chances of decisive success; yet, had they then taken Sebastopol, the whole result of the war would have been different. It was the grievous, the intolerable, strain of defending Sebastopol, situated at a vast distance from the centre, and at a most inaccessible extremity of the empire, which ruined Russia. The Allies landed their troops and stores within six miles of their camp fresh and unweakened; the Russians had to march their battalions from Moscow to the Crimea. Two-thirds of their loss in men took place along this dreary and wasted line of march. For hundreds of miles the roads leading from the interior to the isthmus of Perekop were at the conclusion of the war marked by a continuous white line, formed by the bleached bones of men and animals. We know from sad experience what six miles even of such roads were. Had Sebastopol fallen at once, the vast military strength of Russia would have remained, humiliated indeed, but unbroken. A fleet and a fortress would have been lost, but the real might of the army would scarcely have suffered; and as there were no other vulnerable points of importance on the south coast, our offensive power would have been nearly exhausted. In any future operations directed towards the interior, all the advantage would have lain on the side of the Muscovites. It was the long-protracted and desperate defence of Sebastopol which decided the issue of the war; for it fixed the scene of the struggle at a point ruinous to the forces of the Czar, and accessible, beyond any other, to those of France and England. Man proposes, but God disposes!

*

Before finally quitting this subject, we wish to note a verbal topographical mistake which crept into the third note at page 704 of the December number of this Magazine. The expression is there used, "with the mouth of the Katcha now in our power;" it should of course have been, "with the mouth of the Belbec now in our power." The context, however, clearly indicated this.

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS TO INDIA.

THE subject of Missions is a perplexing one. In idea nothing can be nobler than the attempt to spread the truth and kingdom of Christ throughout the world. Whoever believes in Christianity as the power and wisdom of God for the good of the human creatures He has made, must long to see its beneficent influences everywhere diffused, and must be ready to do all he can to aid in their diffusion. The missionary life of the early Church; the labours of apostle and martyr, who gladly sacrificed their lives that they might win men to the knowledge and love of Christ; the marvellous transformation wrought by these labours in the primitive ages; the new spiritual forces working underneath in strange and beautiful forms of activity, till the surface of the ancient civilisation was everywhere broken up and changed; the equally astonishing conversion of the wild northern nations who overran the Latin world and subdued its arms, but were in turn subdued by the arms of the new spiritual empire which had risen upon the ruins of Roman greatness ;-these are pictures of missionary triumph fitted to kindle the least enthusias tic, and to move even the coldest and most sceptical of historians. In the long distance of those early ages the glory which surrounds the Christian missionary is undimmed. All recognise the self-sacrifice of his career and the good which he accomplished.

But when we change the point of view, and pass from the career of primitive apostles, saints, and martyrs to the details of modern missionary life, and the results of modern attempts to convert the heathen, enthusiasm is apt to vanish, and doubts held in check before

the ancient triumphs of the Cross, are frequently expressed. It is assumed to be the business of the religious world to cry up missions, but the old soldier or civilian, who has seen something of their working in India, shakes his head when they are mentioned. He knows better; and even if we do not allow this, and attribute the shrewd suspicion partly to indifference and partly to ignorance, grave doubts from gravely-pious men may be heard on the subject. Men who prize truth more than any mere form of religion, and the human virtues more than any mere change of creed, see much to question in certain aspects of modern missions. They see a frequent triviality where they looked for nobleness and grandeur of aim; and touches of exaggeration, and even falsehood, where they looked for simplicity and single-minded sincerity. The knowledge which is gathered from missionary magazines, or even from contact with missionaries themselves, is often painfully disappointing. Missionary stations are not models of apostolic zeal and self-denial; they are sometimes hotbeds of religious contention and jealousy-small men contending bitterly with one another for the exercise of a feeble and uncertain power. We are filled with an ideal of Christian heroism, and the picture before us is one of commonplace passion and vulgarity. The bitter quarrelling which for long surrounded the Jerusalem Bishopric, now happily dying out of mind, was a scandalous instance of what we mean. The Natal business is another. Where the influences at work are so mean and so divided, it is not wonderful that doubts should be expressed as to their utility. The "day of small things,"

'Address on Christian Missions to India; tional Missions of the Church of Scotland.' Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London.

with general Reference to the EducaBy Norman Macleod, D.D. William 1868.

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